


Names and Choices

by Arbryna



Category: Dragon Age (Comics), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Choices, Comic Spoilers, F/F, Introspection, One Shot, POV Second Person, The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, Until We Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:45:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbryna/pseuds/Arbryna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our mistakes make us who we are--it's figuring out who that is, and who we want it to be, that's the hard part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names and Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the Dragon Age comic Vol. 3, "Until We Sleep". Won't make much sense if you haven't read them.

This isn't how you ever pictured being trapped in the Fade. 

Not that you've wasted too much thought on it, of course. You had that one brush with the Fade's deception, back in Kirkwall, with…

Well. You rather assumed that if you ever found yourself stuck here again, it would be more of the same: some desire demon offering you all you could ever want. 

There would be a glorious, three-masted ship, grander and faster than any you've ever seen, manned by a crew of the most delicious, muscled, _glistening_ sailors in all of Thedas. The hold would be packed with gold and jewels and whiskey and you'd sail the clear blue waters of the Amaranthine Ocean without a care in the world. The days would be filled with adventure, the nights with drunken debauchery the likes of which could only ever exist in your imagination. 

It would be perfect. You might not even try to resist, really; the real world hasn't exactly treated you kindly. 

Well, you might not have resisted _before_ —before Kirkwall, before…

Anyway. You never expected _this_. 

The tent is heavy, unbleached canvas. It's large, with bedrolls laid out in uniform lines on either side of one narrow aisle. Faint morning light spills through the opening at the far end, but you don't need light to know that you're alone. You can feel it in the stillness of the air, hear it in the silence. 

Outside, there are footsteps. Scattered all around, but all headed in the same direction, all pounding with the same even gait. It sounds like a bloody army. 

There's movement at the opening of the tent, a shifting of the light. When the flap is pulled aside, an unfamiliar horned head appears. Your palms itch for your daggers, but when you reach up to grab them the gilded handles seem to melt, give way under your touch—as if they're not quite _there_. Your mouth curves into a frown as every muscle in your body tenses. 

"Come, Tallis," the ox-man says, in that maddening monotone they all seem to have. "It is already beginning." 

Tallis. Like that little red-haired elf. You might have liked her, if you'd met under other circumstances. If she hadn't led you all on only to betray you, if she hadn't gotten you mixed up in yet another Qunari mess. 

Well, it wasn't you she was after. It was…

Hawke. Maker's balls, you can bloody well _think_ the name, can't you? 

Except it hurts, even now. You hate that it does. That the faintest memory of clear ocean-blue eyes and perpetually messy black hair can spark an ache in your chest deeper than you ever thought possible. You never let anything get that close, not after you got away from Luis. The rotten, slimy, impotent bastard. 

Not until Hawke. 

You never needed a purpose before. Never wanted one. Purpose was the same as responsibility, and you didn't want any part of that. You didn't want anyone depending on you, didn't want to depend on anyone else. Every woman for herself, and all that. 

You were happy then. Or you thought you were. Then bloody Hawke had to ruin it all. 

It was insidious, how Hawke wormed her way into your heart. You'd thought the sodding thing dead, or at least walled up enough to keep out anyone who might be idiot enough to try to get in. But she didn't try, not really. Once you told her that feelings were absolutely out of the question, she never brought up the subject again. She was just _there_. For you, for everyone. 

She fought the blighted Arishok for you, got Castillon off your back, gave you back your freedom, and never asked for anything in return. The bloody fool acted like it was something she'd do for any friend. It was, really. Hawke was just like that, and before you knew it you were falling. 

It hurt. Maker's ass, it hurt, but it was the best pain you ever knew. You kept falling, through all the mess in Kirkwall, through those glorious months afterward sailing aimlessly by day and having fabulous sex by night. Every night you dozed off with Hawke pressed up against your back, every morning you woke to the sun turning her pale skin to gold, you fell just a little bit further.

Until one day, without warning, you hit bottom. You woke up and you were alone. There was no note, no sign of a fight; Hawke was just gone. 

And the heart you'd thought too well-guarded to be hurt shattered into a million pieces. 

You've tried to get back to who you were before, tried to lose yourself in the simplicity of booze and duels and meaningless sex. But Hawke changed everything—changed _you_. None of it feels the same as it did before, as exhilarating or refreshing or satisfying. You were Isabela long before you met Hawke, but now the name is impossibly intertwined with hers. Every time it's uttered by some greasy longshoreman in a tavern, or moaned theatrically by some whore in a brothel, all you can think about is the way Hawke's soft lips would curve around the syllables of it, the raspy way it would drag from her throat in the throes of passion. 

Maybe you were right. Maybe it's time for a new name, a new identity; one that isn't rendered weak and soft by memories you'd like nothing more than to bury in the deepest depths of the ocean. You remade yourself once, you can do it again. Let Isabela lie dead alongside Naishe, the discarded remains of the helpless girl you used to be. You don't need either of them.

You blink, and the ox-man is still looking at you, waiting for you. It's like only a moment has passed. You feel strange, different. You look down at yourself; the image flickers before your eyes, worn leather boots becoming skintight patchwork pants. You want to laugh at it—you haven't worn pants in years, save for that ill-fated adventure into Tevinter with Alistair that got you all into this mess. If you did, you'd have better taste than to stitch together scraps of leather and call it clothing. Andraste's tits, they look like…

Shit. They look like what that bitch Rasaan was wearing. You learned it well enough; it's not like there was much else to look at during those three awful weeks in captivity, half-starved and waiting for death. 

It dawns on you, then—should have from the start, really—that what the blighter at the front of the tent is waiting for is for you to join the bloody army. He's not looking at you like all the other Qunari have, like you're something rotten they've stepped in; he's looking at you as an equal, as a comrade. 

He wants you to be a bloody Qunari. 

You thought the Fade was supposed to show you your dreams, your desires. This is a bloody nightmare. The last thing you'd ever want is to submit to the sodding Qun, let them strip you of your free will along with everything else that makes you who you are. 

_But where has your free will gotten you?_

The voice is quiet but strong, echoing out from the hollow gash in your chest that hasn't yet been able to heal. It sounds like your mother, like Luis, like Castillon, like Rasaan…

It's the voice that's absent that speaks the loudest. Hawke would never have wanted this for you. She would have cut down every last Qunari in Thedas to prevent it. Hawke never asked you to be anything more or less than what you were. 

But Hawke isn't here. 

If Isabela has to die, maybe…maybe you could give Tallis a go. You've always said you'd try anything once. 

As you think it, you can feel the leather sheathing your legs become more solid. Your tunic fades, replaced by pauldrons holding up a band of pale fabric barely containing your breasts. Aveline would have a fit if she saw you in this getup. 

The skin of your chest, your face, your upper arms starts to feel tight, heavy; when you look down again, you're painted red as blood. You reach up to draw your weapons, but your daggers are gone. In their place is a longsword, and when you draw it, you see a wickedly sharp axe blade grafted onto it near the hilt. The pommel is as sharp as the point of the sword. It's one of those wildly impractical weapons that you always saw the Qunari wielding back in Kirkwall—that you laughed at while you twirled your daggers, watched for some weak spot to stick them in. 

The leather-wrapped hilt molds to your hands like it was made for them. The weight of it feels natural, not at all clumsy or heavy like you would expect. As you grip it, you can feel Isabela start to slip away, to fade. 

You step out of the tent, join the rest of the Ben-Hassrath in their march on a village whose name is inconsequential. The sky is already on fire, bright orange and clouded with black smoke. 

A bas appears before you, a soldier pathetically trying to resist that which would give him purpose. His blood splashes hot on your skin as your blade slices his chest open.

The name Hawke ceases to have meaning. There is no meaning, no truth but the Qun. 

This is simple. It is a purpose. In its own way, it is freedom.

***

After, when Varric and his friend have brought you back to yourself, when you've found Alistair and Maric and finally finished the whole bloody mess, you wake up.

You're bruised and bloody and sore in places that haven't been this sore in ages. You stagger out into the flaming ruins of Ath Velanis, only to discover the bloody Qunari stuck to their word—you must have all been stuck in the Fade for longer than an hour, because their dreadnoughts are nowhere to be seen. 

What remains of your crew—the loyal ones, the ones that chose to stand and fight rather than convert to the Qun just to escape the battle—is waiting for you, on the ship you had fixed up. You didn't expect the Qunari to leave it behind, but you suppose even you can still be surprised. 

You can get back to normal, now, or at least try. It takes a month or so to get his Highness back to Denerim. There was a time when you'd have spent it all trying to get Alistair back in the sack—you still have fond memories of him and that Warden—but you can't seem to find the motivation for it. You spend most of the time either holed up in your cabin or propped up against the bow, staring off into the horizon. 

Your crew learns pretty quick to leave you to it—a couple of well-aimed daggers whizzing past their ears speaks clearly enough.

Varric isn't deterred so easily. You're not sure what he saw in the Fade, what tried to tempt him. Whatever it was, you can tell it's left him shaken, but he still manages to come by and harass you at least once a day. 

For the most part, he doesn't bring it up. You can tell he wants to, but he sticks to inane comments about the weather or the crew, or confides all of the wild embellishments he's making to the tale of this adventure. 

You don't tell him what went on in your head—it's still too raw, too overwhelming—but somehow, you don't have to. He seems to recognize something in you, grief and confusion and a desperate sort of aimlessness. In your less self-involved moments, you think of how he's always dodged the question of Bianca, and wonder if maybe he can sympathize more than he'll admit. 

Balls. It's pathetic, all this soul-searching. It's what you were trying to avoid, after all—you thought you could leave Isabela behind. That you could become someone else, someone who wasn't weighed down by all this emotional baggage. Someone with a purpose.

But Hawke was the only purpose you ever chose for yourself. The only purpose you were ever proud of. Without her…

You never knew whether Hawke left you, or if she was taken. There was no way to tell, no way to be sure. It's almost worse than her being gone, not knowing how or why. 

Maybe that's the answer you need. Maybe if you can find out what happened, get some kind of closure…maybe then you can move on. 

It takes a few days of deliberation, a few more of drinking yourself stupid, but by the time you dock in Denerim you've made up your mind. You leave the ship with Brand, head out into the city with a pack slung over your shoulders. 

You're going to find Hawke. 

If she was taken, if she's gotten herself into yet another perilous life-or-death predicament, well…you'll save her, because you bloody well owe her after all the times she's saved you.

And if she just left…

Well, you've got a lot of time to figure out all the creative—and painful—ways you'll make her pay for _that_.


End file.
